Community name project asks: What’s in a lane?
Anonymous paths transformed into celebrations of local lore
Cherished drycleaners, wine-making neighbours and the city’s industrial roots have been immortalized in blue-andwhite street signs, as naming projects transform back alleys into memory lanes.
Now, a 19th-century cottage and a 24year-old rapper are among the latest inductees into Toronto’s cartographic history.
New names for nine previously anonymous laneways in the St. Clair Ave. W. area will be dedicated in the spring. A 10th, “Dom’s Lane,” will be unveiled in a ceremony Saturday.
Domenico Cozzi, an 82-year-old corner-store owner, has been fuelling neighbourhood kids with sandwiches for almost 50 years. Generations of happy customers banded together to name in his honour the lane near his Davenport Rd. and Christie St. shop.
Following similar initiatives in the St. Lawrence and Harbord Village neighbourhoods, a call for suggestions went out in the Wychwood area in August 2014.
It was just months after 24-year-old Barry Luksenberg, who grew up in the neighbourhood, was killed in a motorcycle accident while travelling in Vietnam. More than 800 people signed a petition to name a stretch of alley near Barry’s family home — running parallel to St. Clair Ave. W. into Graham Park — Feel Good Lane, in honour of his hip-hop stage name.
“That part of the process was such a reward for us,” said his father, Leonard Luksenberg, of reading through the comments left on the petition websites.
When the signs go up, they won’t so much be a reminder for Barry’s family, who “think about him all the time anyway,” Leonard said, but a celebration of the spirit he brought.
“I’ll think, this is really going to make a lot of people feel good, and that’s going to make me feel better.
“I think it will make me sad, too, for a while, but it’s worth it. And I think he would have loved it.”
With more than 3,000 lanes in the city, emergency services such as fire and ambulance prefer that lanes have names so they’re easier to find, said local councillor Joe Mihevc.
“Very often, if there’s an accident in a laneway . . . they don’t know, if you refer them to the front of the building,” the Ward 21 councillor explained.
This round of naming marks the first time the neighbourhood has properly laid claim to any of the more than 100 lanes that clandestinely criss-cross behind houses and shops, connecting playgrounds and parking spots.
Twenty-five suggestions were submitted for review by a group of local residents, with an eye out for namesakes that would make a broad impact. The names must also comply with the city’s policies for street names, so no offensive language allowed.
Despite the strong response, Mihevc said naming every lane isn’t the goal.
“We’re not going to exhaust all of them,” he said. “We’ll leave some for future generations.”
NAME THAT LANE
Dom’s Lane Domenico Cozzi isn’t one to brag. “I can’t tell you if I am a person that deserves such a thing or not,” the 82-year-old said, in his thick Italian accent. “I don’t know.” His neighbours do. After almost 50 years running a corner store near Davenport Rd. and Christie St., the octogenarian and his lunchtime sandwich offerings are a fixture in the area, prompting dozens of neighbours to recommend the laneway near his shop be named in his honour. The feeling is mutual. “The reason I am here, I think, is because the customers keep me happy; the customers keep me in life,” Cozzi says. Feel Good Lane Inspired by the local streetcar line, Barry Luksenberg and his friends dubbed themselves the “512” crew, sporting tattoos and hand signs representing their roots. Now, almost two years since his death, the commitment will live on in a laneway that will soon bear his hip hop name, FeelGood. “I think it’s an idea that really fits his whole enthusiasm for the neighbourhood and the crew and his friends,” said his father, Leonard. Helen Porter Lane The lane named for storyteller Helen Porter sits a block from the home she shared with her husband, Gary Hophan. Porter, who died in 2007 of leukemia, was a leader in Toronto’s storytelling community. “Like a lot of ventures of that sort, it wasn’t particularly viable financially, so we had to give it up,” Hophan laughed. “But it was pretty exciting when it was going on.”
Tollkeeper’s Lane
Newly minted Tollkeeper’s Lane runs near the former site of a cottage that housed the family who was on duty 24/7, collecting tolls for developers who built local roads. From about 1835 to 1895, the cottage sat at a spot that’s now in the curb lane of Bathurst St. at the southeast corner of Davenport Rd. Through the Community History Project, it was moved in 2008 to its current spot, Tollkeeper’s Park, northwest of the intersection. Robert Zend Lane Robert Zend fled Hungary in 1956 with his wife and baby and soon established himself among Canada’s literary luminaries. For 21 years he and wife Janine lived on Hillcrest. In almost 20 years of work for the CBC, Zend held many positions. He published five books of fiction and poetry in his lifetime. Janine published five additional volumes after his death in 1985. Staff reporter Sarah-Joyce Battersby